


Neverland has nothing on this shit

by neverweremine



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Cults, Gen, reposted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-07 21:50:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20824367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverweremine/pseuds/neverweremine
Summary: Warnings for cult stuff. Mentions of child abuse. Be wary.





	Neverland has nothing on this shit

**Author's Note:**

> I think I originally wrote and posted this maybe pre-season 4? mid-season 3?

Parents’ Day is right around the corner. Everyone is excited. He is not. It must show on his face because the kids hound him; ask him why he’s not jumping for joy like the rest. They trap him with their curious little stares, their sinuous unsaid insinuations. He won’t fall for it.

They won’t make him fall for it.

“Do you not like your parents?” A snot-nosed little girl asks of him. He doesn’t know their names. He doesn’t need or want to know any of their names.

“Are they mean to you? My parents are mean to me sometimes. They wouldn’t let me bring my Game Boy to the camp. Said it was ‘suckin’ the life outta me’ or somethin’.” A spoiled brat says. The kids are moving in closer now; waiting for an answer. They are out for blood but he will not give them any.

“I love my parents,” he says to the crowd at large. “I love them from the bottom of my soul, always.”

The spoiled brat winkles his large nose. “That’s not true. You have to hate them sometimes.”

Daniel smiles. Some kids back away. “They’re my parents. I’m their child. They made me. I love them.”

The girl wrinkles her nose too. “It sounds like you’re reading off a list. Tell us how you really feel!”

Daniel’s smile falters. He glares at the girl - the one who started it all - and crosses his arms. “I told you I loved them, didn’t I?”

(He has to love them. They’re his parents. His family. His support. His Saviors from this sinful world and if he doesn’t love them, he’ll burn. Burn for your sins, burn for your love. Burn. Burn. Burn-)

Someone in the crowd of faceless children asks, “But do they love you?”

It’s on the tip of his tongue. He can taste it on the roof of his mouth and the back of his top incisors but his lips seal shut and sweat forms on his too clammy skin. No one's ever asked him this before - never in his ten years of life - because it should be obvious. Of course his parents love him. He is their son, their child, their creation; simply put: he is theirs - but then his mind flashes back to the first day of camp when the parents were dropping their kids off. Every parent was helping their child move in, hugging them goodbye, exchanging ‘I’ll miss you’s’ and ‘have fun’s while promising to write, patting heads and squeezing shoulders. Every parent that is -

Except his.

Daniel’s mouth is opening, but he realizes a second too late that they’re not opening with the right words.

“No, I -”

“Daniel, Daniel!” His name is both a relief and a shock. The kids part to show David, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, waving something in the air. “Daniel, I got a letter from my mom!”

And like that, an opportunity appears. Daniel grabs David and drags him away. Away from the crowd and the staring eyes. Away from the words and the blasphemy that almost left his lips.

“Let’s read it in the tent,” he says when he gets his brain to focus past the pounding in his ears. He’s already dragged the other boy halfway there but David's too focused on the mail in his hand to notice his kidnapper’s urgency or the vice grip around his wrist. The moment they enter the tent he lets makes a beeline for his bed but before he can even so much as sit, David’s torn open the envelope; his eyes both eager and something familiar; something closer to home.

Hungry?

No, not quite.

“Dear David,” David reads before Daniel can think more of the subject. “How have you been? Has camp been treating you well? I’m sorry to say that I won’t be able to… oh.” The joy drops from David’s face and his shoulders slump. Despite the darkening mood of the tent, Daniel can’t help the smile that tugs at his lips. At least he won’t be the only kid in camp whose parents won’t show up for Parents’ Day. David reads the rest of the letter, though the earlier eagerness has vanished, “Even though I won’t be able to come, enclosed in the envelope are some Airheads. You can share it with your roommate, Danny. Love, Mom.”

“My name’s not Danny,” he mutters as David fishes out six little things from the envelope. Still, ‘Danny’ is a better nickname than the one Mr. Campbell insists on calling him - though it depends on the day; sometimes being called 'creepy murder child’ is fun.

“Here you go,” David says as he plops three little plastic wrappers - a blue one, a silver one, and a red one - in his hands. The blue one is labeled blue raspberry, the red one is cherry, and the silver one is an ominous “White Mystery”. On each colorful wrapper, there is a smiling red balloon with the tagline, “Out of Control.”

Ugh.

“What’s wrong? Do you not like Airheads?” David asks as he tears into his own Airhead monstrosity. The candy on the inside is as bright green as the wrapper on the outside and resembles both stiff cardboard and plastic Play-Doh. He stares at the - what he assumes is edible - candy in his own hands.

“I don’t know, I’ve never tried one before.”

“Oh, is it because of the religion thing? I can take them back if you want.”

David extends his hands and Daniel glances back and forth from the open palm to the offensively bright candy in his grasp. “No,” he says, drawing the stupid things close, “I’m keeping them.”

David raises an eyebrow. “Are you going to eat them?”

Daniel pauses. Yes, you should eat candy, shouldn’t you? Before it goes rotten and ants crawl into your bed, at least. He goes through the motions of opening the wrapper. His hands shake. David doesn’t comment. When the wrapper reveals the painted red cardboard called candy, he takes a bite and grimaces. Was candy always this chewy? He chomps with his teeth and pulls but the thing stretches and he shakes his head to better tear with his teeth but there’s no give.

“Pull harder. C'mon, Daniel, haven’t you ever had taffy before?”

With a growl, Daniel tugs as hard as he can until the little bits of whatever glue held the candy together ripped apart so fast his head snapped back. In revenge, he chews the candy so hard in his mouth and when it’s said and done, he sticks out his tongue and says, “This tastes like shit."

“Language! And if you don’t want them, I can take them back.”

“No, I will eat all of it.” He takes another bite of the monstrosity as a demonstration and prays that one of his teeth doesn’t fall out from the abuse. He eats the blue raspberry and the cherry and takes a bite out of the white mystery before grabbing the lighter from under his bed and lighting it on fire in the middle of their tent. It doesn’t do much besides burn and bubble and curl inwards on itself but it does catch flame like cardboard, so there’s that.

“Now look at what you did!” David says as he points at the fire he started; over-dramatic as always.

“There's a burn mark in our tent. What will we say when Gregg and Darla ask what happened?”

“Say I started a fire,” Daniel shrugs. “Now let’s take the rest of the Airheads and put it near the anthill. I want to watch them try to take this abomination apart.” He hops off his bed but David’s still staring at the scorched earth mark with puppy dog eyes so Daniel digs his feet into the ground and kicks fresh dirt over it. When he’s done, David nods, and they both set out to watch ants work for the rest of the day. It’s fascinating. It would be more fascinating if David would let him burn the anthill with a magnifying glass but sometimes throwing other people’s food at ants is just as fun.

It’s so fun, Daniel almost forgets the words he almost said earlier. Almost.

——————————————————-

Click. Click. Click. The Rubik’s Cube is a mix of color on every side but this isn’t the first time Daniel’s solved it and he’s getting quicker each time. It’s a matter of recognizing patterns. Two more turns this way and ... Outside, Gregg and Darla’s voice are as pleasant as they’ve ever been as they tour parents around. Someone asks where Mr. Campbell is. Darla’s voice hitches as she explains Mr. Campbell’s on a short business trip and that he will unfortunately not be present for Parents’ Day.

Click. Daniel frowns at the solved Rubik’s Cube in his hands. He lobs it back into the junk pile whence it came and squeezes his way past sheet-covered furniture and mountains made of cardboard boxes to the solitary window overlooking the front of the mess hall. David greets his arrival with a smile, his nose smudged from where it pressed against the dirt and dust-stained glass. Outside and below them, the parents are being led by Darla and Gregg in a tour of the camp.

“Where’re your parents, Daniel?” David asks.

“Not here,” he responds.

“Oh, were they not able to make it too? That’s too bad.” And he says it as if he means it too: bottom lip sticking out, eyes wide. It’s disgusting.

“It’s fine,” Daniel says as he steps up to the window and peers at the tiny people below. “They’re all sadists anyway.”

From the corner of his eyes, he catches a single red eyebrow shooting up. “Your parents?”

“All parents,” he corrects, gesturing to the view . “Look at them.”

David does. He presses his hands on the grimy glass and squints his eyes to the hollering mess outside full of movement and chatter. A father lets his kid hang off his large forearm and laughs. A mother nods and listens as her child pulls her along by her pencil skirt and points at various things of interest. The little snot-nosed brat from earlier scowls in mock outrage as her father messes up her hair in a noogie.

“I don’t see it,” David says as he witnesses these things.

“Of course you don’t,” Daniel snaps. Instead of pointing to irrefutable evidence out the window, he winds his arm back and punches the other boy in the shoulder. Hard.

“Ow! What was that for?” David cries as he rubs his injured shoulder. He stares at Daniel with teary eyes but Daniel is too well-rehearsed in ignoring the icky things in his guts; no matter the victim.

“What did you feel right then?”

“Hurt? That was a real mean thing to do, Daniel.”

“Pain,” he corrects. “You felt pain. Tell me, why would anyone want to create human life purposefully?”

“Uh, because someone wanted kids?”

“Slaves is more like it.” He pinches the skin right above David’s elbow, grinning as David slaps his hand away. “Pain. You feel it. I feel it. Why would anyone willingly create anything that would feel pain? It makes no logical sense. If parents were as compassionate as we’re led to believe then why create us in the first place if we have even an ounce of a chance of feeling pain?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think parents want us to feel pain. It happens. It’s eniv- inet -” David’s face scrunches up as he tries to sound the words through his clumsy mouth, “inev -”

“Inevitable,” Daniel corrects again, “and speak for yourself.”

“What does that mean?”

Daniel doesn’t answer. He takes one look at the grounds outside at the various kids with their respective parents and then turns on his heel, winding his way downstairs and out the back door. David’s footsteps echo his own but Daniel does not comment as they go deeper and deeper into the forest. It isn’t until the grass goes from well-trimmed to tickling their feet that David speaks.

“Daniel, what are we doing out here?”

He stops. Nearby, a squirrel makes funny faces at them before moving on. He cranes his ears but the voices of children and parents alike can’t reach him here. Satisfied, Daniel sits and lays against the grass, uncaring of how the grass stains will look on his white shorts or the bugs that no doubt litter the grass. “I’m trying to relax. You’re intruding.”

“Oh.”

David shuffles his feet; the shuffle of someone who can’t decide whether to leave or to stay. Daniel rolls his eyes. “Sit down already.”

David sits. Then he pulls something that crinkles from his pocket. “Want some goldfish crackers? I got the extra cheese version.”

“Sure.”

The forest is quiet as the two boys eat. A whistle blow breaks the silence, but it’s faint. Neither of them moves. A wind blows past causing the grass to tickle the right side of his body. He rolls over onto his side and finds himself face-to-face with David.

“Hey, what’s your favorite weather?” The boy asks, his eyes curious and shining; bits of grass sticking to his hair.

“I don’t know.”

David waits. Daniel scowls.

“Is that it? 'What’s your favorite weather?’ Have you run out of everything else to ask?”

“Come on, there are a lot of different types of weather. I like cloudy days, the one where rain isn’t coming but there are still clouds so the sun doesn’t melt me but I can still play outside. How about you? Do you like the cold? Fog? Sun? Rain-”

“Okay, okay,” he says if only to get the other to shut up. He thinks about it for a second. Sunny days are out of the question because he sunburns too much. He tilts his head back, and the wind pushes against his cheek. Windy is nice if it’s an only slight wind. Fog is nice, the tall pine trees the only beacon in a world protected on its own, a place where nothing exists if you don’t look too hard.

“I think rain is nice when you’re not caught in it,” is what he settles for after a few moments of quiet contemplation. “When it’s you alone in the house and the whole place is dark except for a few candles you’ve lit. It’s… cozy.”

David smiles at his answer. He always smiles at Daniel’s answers no matter how absurd or backward sounding . “That sounds nice.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” David flops back onto his back and for a heartbeat Daniel misses looking at the boy’s green eyes and gentle smile but doesn’t give it much thought, instead opting to lay on his own back and stare at the sky above. It’s silent for a few seconds, neither boy in a hurry to interrupt the quiet moment.

“Daniel, what are your parents like?”

Nevermind.

The serenity of the forest shattered, Daniel responds in the easiest way he knows how: short and vague-like.

“They’re parents.”

David huffs, “Yeah, but what are they like? You haven’t talked about them at all since I’ve known you and it’s Parents’ Day. Could you at least tell me why they couldn’t come?”

“Work.”

David rolls his eyes.

“You haven’t told me much about your parents either.” He points out. “I know you have a mother but what about your father?”

“Dad…” He sits up and watches David: the way the other boy’s eyes dip, the way his lips wobbled. He turns his head away, shrugs like it means nothing when it’s clear that his words mean everything. “Dad’s been away for a while.”

“And how long is a while?” He asks.

“Five years?” It comes out as a whisper, a croak at the end. David won’t meet his eyes. He could push it. He could have David crying in three minutes tops and David would forgive him like the other times he’s made the boy cry - from anger or frustration or plain want of amusement. He could push it, he knows, and David would forgive him because he’s David.

He doesn’t push it.

Instead, he watches as a cloud passes the sky. It’s cloudy today, no chance of rain, and the sun peeks out now and again but it’s not hot enough to melt. The perfect day for Parents’ Day. David’s favorite.

“Controlling. Frantic.” Daniel sneers. “Illogical.”

“What?”

He tilts his head towards David. “My parents. You asked about them, didn’t you?”

David nods. Daniel pretends he doesn’t see the teary eyes he has. Even when he tried not to make the other boy cry, it happened anyway. So much for being a good friend.

“I’m going to get some water,” David swipes at his eyes as he jumps to his feet. He leaves their little spot and Daniel gets to twelve seconds before he thinks 'screw it’ and follows. When he gets back to the camp, he scans the field for David, plotting routes to get to him without interacting with any of the parents and kids. He spots David to the side of a crowd of people, drinking-

There is no hesitation. There is no time for it. He walks straight to David - feet picking up pace as David raises the solo cup to his lips - and smacks the drink out of his hand. Kool-Aid spills out of the cup, staining the skin of someone’s sandaled foot purple but he doesn’t care.

“Daniel, what the heckie? I was about to drink that.” Under his breath he continues, “It was grape flavored.”

Grape flavor? Not…

He grabs David by the shoulders and squeezes until the tips of his fingers and knuckles grow white. He looks into those familiar green eyes and pleads with him: “You’re not ready for ascension.”

“Daniel,” Darla’s sharp voice cuts through the crowd; murmuring and saying things and pointing when they should be choking and frothing and saying their last prayers. She has her arms on her hips and a face that says he should be afraid but that’s child’s play compared to the fear the punch in the transparent bowl instills in him. “Apologize to David and Mr. Johnson.”

“Mr. Who?” Daniel asks, gripping tighter on David’s shoulders. He brings himself to survey the crowd; white solo cups in everyone’s hands with that funky design. One parent has the gall to keep drinking the pois- the ascension aid. He’s not choking on his last breath or fighting the urge to vomit it back up. He wasn’t curling in on himself while saying his last prayers, begging: ’please, please, please’. A drill then. A false alarm. His parents liked to do that to him; tell him he’s finally reached ascension, give him Kool-Aid mixed with whom-knows-what, and when he didn’t curl inward like the people in the Xemug-approved tapes did, they’d say it was a test. A test to see if he’d drink it. A test to see if he was still loyal. He always drank it because they asked it of him but the drink has since lost its flavor.

If he could never set his eyes on that blasted shade of purple ever again, it’d be too soon.

He looks around again. They aren’t here. His parents aren’t here.

Good.

“Are you even listening?” Darla leans in.. “Mr. Johnson is waiting for you to apologize.”

Daniel slides his gaze to the parent tapping his foot behind Darla’s shoulder, the one with purple Kool-Aid staining his socked sandals. He smiles and the foot-tapping slows to an uneasy stop. “I’m sorry, Mr. Johnson.” He says. “I don’t know what I was thinking, but I didn’t mean to get Kool-Aid on you. Now, if you’ll excuse us.”

He grabs an unopened water bottle from the table and with his other arm, grabs David and goes back into the forest. He can hear Gregg behind them, asking them if they want to stay for Parents’ Day but he doesn’t respond and doesn’t let go of David until they’re back at the same clearing as before.

“Here,” he shoves the water bottle into David’s hands. “Never drink that other stuff again.”

He sits his ass on the ground and pulls his knees up to his chest. The woods are darker now; a little less peaceful and a lot more mournful. Perhaps it's only him. David stares at the bottle in his hands, at Daniel, at the bottle again, Daniel, the bottle-

“What?” He snaps. Sometimes it’s better to cut David off at the start of whatever weird assumptions he’s compiling in his head.

“Is this… a religious thing? Did I offend you by drinking Kool-Aid?”

“It’s-” Daniel hugs his knees and tries to push the videos of 'ascension’ they forced him to watch to the back of his mind. “It’s complicated.”

“Oh.” David opens the bottle by lifting his shirt and covering the cap with the fabric before twisting it. He takes a few gulps before offering it to Daniel who refuses it with a shake of his head. He twists the cap back on, “What was that about ascension? I’ve heard you say it before but what is it?”

“It’s-” He grits his teeth but forces himself to continue. His parent’s words fall from his lips as easy as an overflowing dam, flooding the ground like a force of nature. “Ascension happens when we die. It’s when the negative energy that has eaten away at our mortal bodies go away and our spirit and bodies enter space to join Xemug and the Galactic Confederacy.”

David’s eyebrows are down-turned and he’s squinting as if, if he squinted hard enough, he could see the logic in his statement. “That sounds… great?”

“Yeah. Great.” Daniel cranes his head to stare at the endless sky above them before looking down. His splayed hands tighten for a moment, squeezing blades of grass between the gaps of his fingers. He lifts his hand, enjoying the tug of grass before it tears off at the base clamped between his fingers. Then he loosens his grip and watches as the blades fall to the floor without a sound.

——————————————————-

Daniel had always been a pragmatic person, or so he thought of himself. Everyone in camp held no use for him and at first, he thought David the same, but the boy proved himself to be invaluable. He already had a lay of the land, a rapport with the counselors that allowed them extra treats or breaks from dumb camp activities, not to mention a hidden snack compartment in most of his clothing. Yes, David was a stalwart ally.

But he was not without his drawbacks, as Daniel was reminded on an early Tuesday morning.

It wasn’t like he didn’t know who Jasper was. The first time he’d ever heard that name it was two weeks after he’d been dropped off by his parents. He heard it because David called him it. David had called him Jasper.

“I’m sorry,” David had said, letting go of Daniel’s hand with eyes wide with horror. “I’m so sorry, I-”

At the time he didn’t think much of it, even after David ran away with tears streaming down his face. After rounds of asking who Jasper was - which led to Darla crying and Gregg comforting her - someone who attended the camp prior informed him of whom Jasper was: a boy around their age with brown hair and blue eyes. Loved by everyone until he met his tragic end at Spooky Island last year; one of David’s closest friends.

One of David’s closest friends who died and now, one year later, someone who still haunts the boy in the early morning. Daniel twisted in his bedsheets until he could glare at the boy across the tent who woke him up at ass o'clock in the morning sobbing into a dead friend’s shirt.

Already, Daniel could tell it would be a shitty day.

“You shouldn’t mourn for him,” he says. It’s the first thing he’s said today. He hasn’t gone to the bathroom yet, hasn’t washed his face or eaten - heck, he hasn’t even changed out of his pajamas. The words are rotten coming out of his mouth. He blames it on not having brushed his teeth yet either.

David doesn’t respond. He’s too busy crying his eyes out. Daniel stares at him from his perch on Jasper’s his bed and rolls his eyes.

“I said,” he speaks loud and clear this time, eyes tracing the curve of David’s back - the shuddering shoulders and shaking feet, “you shouldn’t mourn for him.”

David lifts himself from his fetal position and turns around. It’s the first Daniel’s seen his face since waking up to broken sobs and it's as wrecked as he imagined: red eyes and snot and tears trailing down crusty, pale skin.

“How could y- you,” his voice sounds horrible too: mucus-clogged in a dry throat, “say that?” David’s hands tighten around his snot-riddled pillow and he chucks it at him with the accuracy of an angry toddler. It misses its mark by a few inches, landing on the floor of their shared tent with a thud. He’s fighting for breath now but even as he fights he gets out. “He’s dead! He’s dead, and you didn’t get to meet him and now you’ll never get to meet him and-”

The breaths are coming quick and labored now and if Daniel was a better friend, he’d get a counselor to help with David’s hyperventilating. If he was a better friend, he’d at least try to calm David down himself; rub his back or remind him how breathing works or something. He’s not a better friend. He’s not even a good friend.

He tries anyway. Even though he’s never received a hug or hugged for over five seconds - the most he’s allowed David to ever hug him - he hugs David. It’s… gross. The sniffling in his ear, the sheen of snot coming down David’s nose up close - it's not ideal. It’s even less ideal when David’s struggling against him even with several hitches in his breath.

“Look,” he says as he squeezes the boy to get him to stop struggling and listen. “Look, you’re right. I’ve never met Jasper and I’ll never get to meet Jasper but wherever he is, it has to be better than here. David, existence is miserable. Being alive is miserable. Even without ascension, I can assure you Jasper is in a better place than we are right now.”

David stills in his grasp. He sniffs aloud, wet and slurpy and Daniel has to suppress a shudder because David is blinking his tears away and looking at Daniel and he’s sure 'looking at your friend with disgust because the sound of someone’s nose vacuuming back mucus is something he never wants to hear again’ is not how you comfort someone.

“Are you… trying to comfort me?” David asks, which only underlines how bad he is at it.

“Sure, let’s go with that.”

David takes that as his cue to back away from the hug and wipe his eyes. Daniel hides his relief by handing the boy a tissue. David’s so busy blowing his nose that Daniel is comfortable letting a small amount of disgust show on his face. Ugh. By the time David’s done through half the box worth of tissues, he looks…

Well, he still looks like shit: eyes red-rimmed, face pale, he’ll need to rehydrate himself - but he looks better. Sorta.

“You know I was serious before, right? Death is always preferable to being alive. Even without ascending, sometimes I think death is the only way to truly be alive.”

A hand reaches out to grab his own. His eyes flick upward at that - he hadn’t even realized that it dropped to the floor - and teary green eyes meet his own. “I - I thought that too, a year ago. I thought ... if Jasper and me - if - together -” David’s breath hitches again, his chest jumping too fast and too hard. He closes his eyes and takes a shaky breath, “- but that’s selfish and sometimes life seems like the lesser choice but at least we’re alive together?”

It’s a fool’s deal. David even has to put a question mark at the end because of how foolish it sounds. Daniel accepts it anyway.

“At least we’re alive together.”

——————————————————-

Maybe it’s morbid curiosity or fate or plain boredom. Either way, he knows it’s a bad idea but does it anyhow. David begged him the one time he hinted at thinking of going there - begged him, “Don’t go to Spooky Island, please. I lost one friend there already,” and maybe that’s what cinched it: the honest fear in David’s eyes, the way he held at Daniel’s arm as if, if he dug his nails in deep enough then nothing bad would happen to him ever.

(No one had ever looked at him like that before.)

This was the summer of firsts. He’s done things, said things, heard and seen things this summer that his parents would never allow him to in a million years. Things that would get him Punished, and he wants more. Hungers for more. It’s that hunger that leads him out of the tent that night, tiptoeing by David cuddling an empty shirt. It’s that hunger that leads him on his hands and knees past the counselor’s cabin. It’s that hunger that leads him to the docks - the island’s tall mountains a giant monolith towering in front of a silver moon, within reach.

That is: if there were any canoes in the water.

He knew this would be the case. The counselors had a strict policy on the canoes, never bringing it out unless they needed it for some water-based camp activity and even then they locked them up right after. He had hoped tonight he’d get lucky and they might’ve forgotten but no such luck which meant he had to steal the keys to the shed.

The keys which the Quartermaster had him on all times.

Shit. Still, he has to try, right?

He doesn’t even get within five feet of the Quartermaster storeroom before it bangs open, the old coot of yesteryear peering down at him with those void, emotionless eyes. “What do you want?” He growls, leaning in way too close. The stench of old people and rotting flesh fills Daniel’s nostrils and he presses a hand to his mouth to stop the upchuck of his dinner. He can do this. He can do this. They’ve come to an understanding in recent weeks, that is: the Quartermaster gives him a wide berth and gives him the least piece of disgusting food item on the menu and Daniel doesn’t rat the man out on the long list of illegal things he’s caught him doing.

He can do this.

He lifts his chin, looks the man dead in his lifeless button eyes and says, “I want a canoe.”

“What for?”

“To row to Spooky Island.”

“You know a kid died on that island, right?”

“I’m aware.”

“All right,” the Quartermaster says as he brushes past him toward the storage shed, “but if you die, I’m not the one who made David cry.”

He pauses at that. That’s right. If he dies, then David would’ve lost two friends to that island. If he dies, David would never return to camp again. He promised David that they’d stay alive together.

The storage shed creaking open is loud in the otherwise quiet night. He follows as Quartermaster carries a canoe to the docks with ease. “You sure about this, kid?”

“I’m sure,” Daniel says. The solution is simple: don't die.

The row is hard with only one person but he makes it work. His arms are screaming by the time he gets to the island but there’s something about the repetitiveness of rowing that makes it easy to shake off the jitters. Now, as he stands at the beach with moon in sky and flashlight in hand, he wonders what’s next. What did he expect coming here? Some unraveling mystery? Some monster to jump from the Underdark? It all seems absurd now that he’s standing on the island itself.

“I’ll explore a little,” he says to himself. “Then I’ll get back to camp and go back to bed before David or anyone else notices I’m gone.”

The place is a little spooky which make sense given the name. The trees aren’t the straight and uniform top to bottom of the pine trees back at camp. No, these trees are long and scraggly and they twist with bare branches that rub against each other to make the sound akin of someone scratching against your window at the dead of night. The trees that grow leaves grow them with jagged edges sharp enough to cut and it takes all Daniel’s willpower not to think of the edges of his mother’s favorite knife. The flashlight he’s brought along doesn’t help abate his fears so much as they play on them, casting long shadows on small rocks and twigs and forming shadow monsters out of his periphery.

His parents were wrong. Negative energy didn’t originate from space. It originated from here and it was messing with his senses. Even his footsteps sounded wrong, an echo where they shouldn’t be… like someone was two steps behind him at all times. Like…

Wait.

Daniel stops walking. Behind him, the footsteps stop one second too late.

Oh. Well, he’s going to die. A part of him screams that he should’ve gathered info on how Jasper died before rowing here or listened to David and not gone at all. Well, too late for that.

Death is preferable, Daniel reminds himself before turning on his heel to face his doom.

Except there’s nothing there. Must’ve been a squirrel or something. Daniel closes his eyes and breathes a sigh of relief. He’s being paranoid, that’s all-

“Say,” an ominous voice calls from behind him, “what’s a kid like you doing in a place like this at night?”

He doesn’t scream, but it’s an almost. He turns his head first; body still and muscles tense. He turns and he can’t see anything because his arms aren’t budging; can’t bring the flashlight around, and as he stares at the dark void behind him, the dark void stares back. His eyes adjust. The dark void turns into a kid and his shoulders relax as he swings the flashlight around for a better view. Only one thing stands out above the rest: the kid has the most horrific fashion taste he’s ever seen.

“That shade of purple is atrocious.”

Daniel turns around to pick the kid apart. The first thing he notices is he’s wearing a Camp Campbell shirt over the horrendous purple shirt. The faded letters on the front give the illusion it's a plain yellow tee but Daniel’s seen the shirt enough times over the summer to recognize it on sight. The next thing he notices is the boy’s shorts. The design is tacky: light blue triangles on a darker blue fabric and then the shoes - the fancy light-up ones that every kid begs their parents to buy; like sheep. Already, Daniel can tell the kid is spoiled, has a terrible fashion sense, and is too dumb to function. No doubt ventured to the island on a dare or something.

“Hey, where are you going?” The boy shouts after him as he walks away.

“Back to camp. If I had known that there was someone like you on the island, I would’ve never come.”

“O- oh.”

A thought strikes Daniel as his feet carry him back to the shore of the island. Names and faces had never been his strong suit but David had been trying to get him to learn their fellow campers’ identities and he’d remember that terrible fashion sense. He closes his eyes, tries to think back to David’s flashcards, to the kids he ate with every day…

He stops dead and turns on his heels.. The kid is right there at the edge of the tree line but there’s something off about him. Something almost wispy, from the way the boy wrings his hands to the way his eyes dart everywhere, mouth stuttering open only to pop close every few seconds.

“Who are you?”

“Me?” The kid points at himself with an uneasy air before a practiced smile - (and Daniel knows it’s practiced, knows it like his own smile) - forms on his lips. “I’m Jasper. Hey, if you want to explore the island I can show you all the best places. You don’t have to leave so early.” The smile dims before it comes back a little stronger, a little more hollow. “I’ve been stuck here for a while and so-”

The words don’t fall so much as they drag against the grains of sand. “But you’re dead.”

The smile fades. A shadow passes over the boy - Jasper’s face - and how strange it is to have a face to the name after all this time. The boy swallows and averts his eyes. “Oh, so you’ve heard of me.”

——————————————————-

The moon hasn’t yet set, but the world doesn’t stop turning. They sit on the beach side to side as Daniel tries to reconcile everything his parents ever told him about ascension and death. Is Jasper still around because he hasn’t properly ascended? Is he here because Xemug commanded it? Was this a lesson, a warning to a boy who’s strayed too far from the path? ’This can be you if you keep going where you’re headed’-type deal?

“You know,” Jasper says, “I imagined someone coming here for the longest time. I looked forward to the day when I could talk to somebody again. I planned what I would say and what I’d do to convince them to stay a little longer but you… you’re kind of a Debbie Downer. No offense.”

“Thanks,” Daniel says dryly. Then - because he’s already a Debbie downer and there’s no going down from that - he asks, “Soooo… how did you die exactly?”

“Oh golly. Straight to the point, huh? If you’re worried about your safety, it’s fine. I got spooked by some squirrels, tripped on a rock, and fell down a long cavern.” He nods his head to the right in the vague direction of the forest. “Been haunting this place ever since.”

Daniel hums. He puts his hands where Jasper’s shoulder should be. It passes with no resistance and the cold that crawls up his arms is enough to raise goosebumps.

“Hey, that tickles!… Why are you pinching yourself?”

“To see if this is a dream,” Daniel answers. He waits, the wind shifts, a wolf howls, the world is the same as ever. He opens his mouth but Jasper interrupts him.

“If you’re going to ask another question, I’ll have to stop you right there. Only one question per night.”

The look he gives Jasper must say all because the boy hastens to explain, “I need something to get you coming back, don’t I?”

“If I only get one question per night and I already used my question for tonight, then there’s no reason to be here any longer.” He moves to get up but gets only gets one step forward before a chill in his arm stops him. No, not a chill. His arm freezes, ice in his veins and the overwhelming sensation of drowning - of a sheet of thick ice above you and the knowledge that no matter how hard you punch and push, you’re fated to drown in the icy blue - overwhelms him.

“Stay. If only for an hour, stay with me, please.” His hands aren’t so much as grabbing Daniel as phasing through but Daniel knows if Jasper had the chance he’d be digging his nails into Daniel’s skin as if he dug hard enough, Daniel would stay forever.

(Someone’s only looked at him like that once before.)

“Fine,” he says, removing his hands from Jasper’s grasp, goosebumps raising against his skin as freezing chill collided with the warm summer night air. “So what's that about a tour of the island?”

Despite the ice still settled in his gut, when Jasper lets go of his arm and gives a tentative smile, Daniel feels warm.

“Hey, you never told me your name.”

He blinks. Did he not introduce himself yet? “I’m Daniel.”

“Daniel? Hey, does that mean I can call you Danny?”

“Call me that and I’m leaving and never coming back.

“Geez Louise. No jokes. Got it.

“Just show me the stupid island.”

——————————————————-

Daniel crawls into bed an hour before the sun rises, visions of horrifying experiments and things an 11-year-old should never witness chasing him in his dreams. He wakes up groggy and trips over his own feet getting to the mess hall. By mid-morning he’s halfway convinced himself that it was all a dream. He says as much to David who keeps glancing at him while fidgeting with his mystery breakfast.

“Must’ve been some nightmare, huh?” David asks.

“Yeah,” Daniel responds. There’s a foreign ickiness bubbling in his gut and he stabs the mashed potatoes with all the strength he has, which given his tired state, is as on par as a newborn kitten. There are a lot of things he hates about his parent’s religion: the restrictions, the twisting and turning logic, the punishments that last a life-time on its own, but the erasure of negative emotions wasn’t one of them. Ever since his arrival at Camp Campbell, he’s done things he couldn’t have done otherwise, yes; but he’s also experienced some terrible emotions hellbent on consuming him from the inside out.

Things he hadn’t felt since he was a child: rage, jealousy, hatred, insecurity - how could anyone function with such negative emotions eating at them? He didn’t know how to deal with them - sometimes didn’t want to deal with them - and sometimes, at the dead of night, all his new emotions swirling in his head - sometimes he thought, 'This isn’t worth it.’ Living a normal life with negative emotions wasn’t worth it.

But sometimes it was worth it to swallow past the unease and smile at David because maybe Daniel deserved to feel negative emotions but David didn’t.

“I’m fine,” he says to lessen the worry stamping the other boy’s brow, “only a little tired. That’s all.”

David later took that to mean, 'I’m not fine and I need someone to guard me at night so scary bed monsters won’t attack me.’

“I’m fine,” Daniel repeats through clenched teeth as his tent partner stares at him from across the room. “You don’t have to watch over me while I sleep, you can go to bed.”

David shakes his head against his pillow. “I know how nightmares can be,” he whispers, “I… I’ll watch over you so they won’t get you tonight.”

Such a childish sentiment; one that Daniel would’ve thought David would have dismissed by now from the various times the boy has woken up in a sweat - not from the summer heat but something else, bedsheets tangling at his feet, panic in his eyes, the name 'Jasper’ on his lips. As Daniel brought the itchy blankets up to his shoulders he wondered if this wasn’t for his benefit as much as it was for David’s. Wondered if the other boy thought by helping protect Daniel from nightmares, that he could save himself from them too. Or maybe he was expecting Daniel to return the favor one day so he could sleep easy for once?

Daniel stares into the dark and David stares back. He tries to keep his eyes open but overestimates his ability to stay awake after yesterday’s night excursion. When he wakes up, it’s to David’s blankets falling to the ground and the boy’s sweat-drenched face whimpering that name again.

Jasper.

Daniel yanks the blankets over his head and turns until he’s facing the tent wall and he wills himself back to sleep.

——————————————————-

Three days later he rows back to Spooky Island again. When his feet hit the beach, Jasper is there, materializing out of thin air like someone rewound a tape of a human erased from existence.

“You made it. For a second there, I thought you were never coming back.”

He doesn’t dignify the other with a response. Instead, he gets straight to the point. “For my question tonight: what was David like?”

The half-smile that graced Jasper’s face falls to the wayside, a small frown taking its place. He tilts his head. “David?”

Something is climbing in his chest at the confusion on Jasper’s face - like fumes from a fire, something noxious rises in his throat. Then Jasper brightens, and he puts his hands to his cheeks in a pantomime of surprise and says, “You don’t mean little Davey, do you? Is he still around?”

“Yes, David is still around. He misses you.”

Jasper laughs, flashing ghost boy teeth and lifeless blue eyes. “You’re joking, right?”

Daniel smiles. He cracks his neck in that way that usually gets him and David anything they want when the other boy’s kindness isn’t enough. “What was that?”

That shudder that goes through Jasper’s body only makes his smile grow edges. “Whoa, dude. No cool. I’m the ghost kid. I’m the only one who’s allowed to be scary here.”

“Repeat yourself. What did you say about David?”

The edges of Jasper’s form wavers. In the full moonlight, he looks like he can disappear off the face of the earth and never come back to this mortal plane and Daniel finds he doesn’t give an ounce of a damn.

“Look, Davey - the Davey, I knew - didn’t like me much. I mean, he started liking me a little before I died but for most of the time I knew him, he didn’t like me. He called me a square once and honestly, he was a bit of a turd. E- excuse my French.”

He wants to accuse the ghost-boy of lying but he remembers David admitting as much, hands behind his head, rueful smile on his lips, “I was a real bad boy last year.” He had a hard time imagining it when he first said it and still has a hard time imagining it even now so he plops down on the sand and tries to picture it. Jasper sits down next to him and a chill sweeps down his arm but he makes no comment and so Jasper doesn’t move.

“How did you two meet?”

“Well, the first time I ever met him I tried to give him a friendship bracelet. I was giving everyone friendship bracelets at the time but the second I tried to give him one he slapped it out of my hand.”

The scenario is familiar, if not reversed. Daniel lifts himself enough to dig into the pockets of his shorts and pulls out a white and green bracelet made from plastic string. “Something like this?” He asks as he holds it up.

“Yeah, one of those.”

“David gave this to me on the first day of camp.”

“Huh… Does he still litter?”

David? Littering? “He once gave me a ten-minute speech on the benefits of recycling.”

“Wow, at this point you know Davey better than I do.” There’s a wistfulness that coats those words and Jasper turns to him with shimmering eyes and a small smile. “Well, what else did you want to know about him?”

“What made him change?”

There’s a pause. Not long enough to be poignant but not short enough to dismiss either. “The choosing of the Sparrow.”

“The what?”

Jasper leans back, his eyes on the horizon. No, not the horizon; the camp across the lake. He sighs. “It’s all malarky. Every year there’s a ceremony involving a sparrow staff and the best camper gets to join The Order of the Sparrow.” He does a little half-hearted jazz hands on this before they slump in the sand.“ You get to hold the staff and get a sash and badge. It’s not that big of a deal. Lame, if you ask me.”

Daniel raises an eyebrow. “It sounds like a big deal the way you say it.”

“I guess it was a big deal to me. They had chosen me for the staff but there was a caveat - there’s always a caveat at Camp Campbell - and I had to get a branch from a tree. Easy, right?” Jasper looks at him and Daniel nods his head on cue. “Well, it should’ve been. I had Mr. Campbell with me and Davey but then I fell down a ravine and got mauled by bears-”

“What?”

“- and I got disqualified because I 'used' technology but who thinks of light up shoes as technology? Davey won the staff instead and I guess,” Jasper takes a deep breath and lets it out into the night air. “I guess Davey saw something on the trip he didn’t see before and changed his ways.”

Daniel takes it all in, rewinding the words, internalizing the story in his head. He says, “That sucks. They cheated you.”

“Thank you!” Jasper shouts, thrusting his arm to the four winds, and it’s so sudden and so honest that it startles a laugh out of him. Jasper laughs too and it must be the surrealness of it all or the sleep deprivation settling under Daniel’s skin or both but he keeps laughing and Jasper must've been alone for a little too long because he keeps laughing too and they must sound like hyenas, laughing so loud for no reason at all but when they stop, chests bruised and gasping for air, they’re still smiling.

“What else do you want to know about Davey?” Jasper asks, mirth in his eyes but it’s subsiding. Dying. That ickiness comes back to his stomach two-fold.

“Let’s stop talking about David for now. What about you? Tell me about you.”

Jasper’s smile grows, and he trips over himself to share all words bottled up in his throat. Daniel smiles back and listens. At one point he leans back and his hand passes through Jasper’s getting colder and colder as Jasper talks about his pog collection and trading cards and toys he’s never had. He doesn’t move his hand. Neither does Jasper.

——————————————————-

And so the night and several other nights pass similarly with boys either exploring the island, talking to each other, or playing games in the sand. Daniel soon learns that spaceships don’t come upon death to take people to space, Jasper acknowledges his clothes are a little tacky (not that he could do anything about it), and they both come upon the realization that while this isn’t where they imagined their life would end up at any point, they wouldn’t have it any other way.

Okay, that was a lie. Daniel would very much like his sleep back and Jasper wouldn’t mind still being alive but as it was, those things would not happen soon, so they settled for what they had.

Each other.

It’s as Daniel’s sneaking past the counselor’s cabin into camp for another round of 'two hours of sleep before morning call’ that he hears it. Jasper’s name. Most times when he sneaks by the cabin there’s no noise. There would be one or two times when the windows would be lit by the glow of a TV and the cabin filled with soft commentary but those times Daniel would take the long way back. This isn’t TV time though, and neither is it snoring time. This is a familiar time: panic-at-twilight..

“I- if only I had remembered to lock up the shed-”

“Shh, shh,” Gregg’s familiar voice soothes, “It wasn’t your fault, Darla.”

“It was! What kind of camp counselor-”

“Hey, I was there too. If it’s your fault then it’s also-”

“I told you I would take care of it but I didn’t!”

“Darla, Jasper dying wasn’t your fault.”

Daniel stills under the window. Even though his head doesn't even brush the bottom of the windowsill, he ducks down on to his hands and knees.

“It was! I wish - god, I wish I could say sorry to him, you know? Sorry you died, it shouldn’t have been an option. Sorry I didn’t lock the shed or do a second round in the tents that night or, or-”

“I’m telling you, Darla. It. Wasn’t. Your. Fault.”

Darla breaks down at that, her cries so piercing in the night but then muffled. Daniel tiptoes and peeks through the window into a room too dark to make out. There are trophies on the dresser; the polished metal glinting in the moonlight, a few books on the bedside table, and on the bed is Darla crying into Gregg’s shoulder. Snot and tears are staining the boy’s nightshirt but Gregg doesn’t seem to mind, rubbing her back with patience while whispering smooth assurances. It looks so easy. How does he do it?

“Hey, hey,” Gregg says as he holds Darla by the shoulders. “I know what’ll help. You want to a check on the campers tonight? They’re all there, I promise. C'mon,” Gregg gets up, offering a hand to his fellow camp counselor, and that’s when Daniel leaves, scampering to make it back to his tent. If he gets caught now, there’s no way they will ever let him leave his tent ever again. He climbs into bed after deconstructing his bed dummy and waits for them to show up, eyes squeezed tight. Two minutes later they show up, their arrival heralded by Darl’s soft crying in the otherwise silent night.

“See,” Gregg whispers as moonlight fills the tent, “they’re all here. Everyone’s safe now.”

“I wish-” she whispers back. Gregg shushes her with a, “I know, Darla. I know,” before guiding her away. The tent flap closes with a nary a sound and Daniel blinks his eyes open into the darkness, the fading footsteps of the counselors drowned out by his heartbeat and the words fluttering in his head.

——————————————————-

“Why not tell everyone you’re here?”

“Is that your question for the night?”

The way Jasper stares at him now; it’s not the boy he’s been familiarizing with little by little after all this time. His eyes seem duller, his face blanker, the edges of life evaporated from his body; a weird thing to say of a dead boy.

“Yes?”

Jasper sighs and the whole island seems to sigh with him. The wind , the branches, and even the nearby water of the otherwise still lake all take in a breath. “I was wondering if this question would ever pop up. Look, Daniel, I’ve thought long and hard about if I got to leave this island. If I could one day go up to my parents and show myself to them - and in every daydream I’ve ever had, they were glad to see me. They threw me a party and cried and welcomed me back and I became the quirky ghost boy in the family. The one who gets to live the dream of staying a kid forever.”

“I’m not seeing any downsides to this.”

“But those are dreams. Daniel, have you ever read Harry Potter?”

“It’s a story about a magic school, right? My parents won’t let me read it.”

“Well, in the last book they talk about these three magic items made by Death himself: the Deathly Hallows. Three brothers had encountered Death and struck a bargain and got one super-powerful magic item each. One was a magic wand more powerful than any other, the other one was an invisibility cloak that let you escape Death’s grasp as long as you wore it, and the last one was a stone. What do you think the stone did?”

He shrugs. “It could skip across the water a lot?”

“You turned it in your hands three times over and it showed the people you’ve lost. Dead people.”

“Oh,” Daniel doesn’t have experience losing loved ones, he doesn’t know if he even has loved ones he’d bring back from the dead, but still, “That’s good, isn’t it?”

“The brother who had the stone committed suicide because he couldn’t stand his would-be fiance as a ghost. He couldn’t stand to see the way he failed her every time he looked at her and she wasn’t meant for the living world either, not anymore, and so he joined her, so they could be together again.”

“That’s… morbid,” he always thought the Harry Potter books were kid books. He was wrong.

“It’s sad but true. If you told everyone that I was here they’d either think you were a liar or come here to find out the truth and then I’d be - what? A spectacle? A cash cow for Mr. Campbell? Something for my parents to cry at after they already had my funeral a whole year ago?”

It makes sense. He of all people should know that nothing is as clean cut as it’s meant to be…

“But what about the other people who miss you? David and Darla, what about them?”

“Darla?” Jasper asks, raising an eyebrow.

“She blames herself for your death. I heard her when I was sneaking back into the tents. She was crying and kept saying it was her fault for not locking the shed or checking the tents the night you died. She blames herself and you’ll let her?”

There is unease in the line of Jasper’s frown, in the way he shuffles on the sand, but a determination shines in his eyes, in the hard line of his brows. “She needs to mourn properly.”

“She needs someone to tell her she did nothing wrong, and who better than the boy she thought she killed?”

“So I set an unrealistic precedent that death is an illusion and when someone’s gone - gone-gone - they wonder why they can’t have them back? They wonder when and where and why and how this little kid still sticks here but the one they love disappears? They need to mourn the right way. Me coming back doesn’t magically solve their grief, Daniel. It’s only prolonging it.”

There’s truth to Jasper’s statement, but it doesn’t lessen the pit in his stomach. “You could still-”

“I’ve had a year to think about this and if there’s one thing I know: it’s that I’d rather stay here forever than hurt someone I love.”

“And then there’s me,” Daniel adds. The boy that Jasper could start with fresh: a boy with no earlier ties, no weigh-downs or extra baggage because this is the Jasper he’s always known instead of the Boy-Who-Died.

Jasper nods, “And then there’s you.”

——————————————————-

When Daniel sneaks into bed that night, David is in the throes of another one of his nightmares. He twists and turns on the bed, sweat pouring down his face. “Jasper,” he gasps. “Jasper, please.” Daniel stands at the foot of his bed wondering if he should do anything or if waking up David would be a waste of time. He’s had his fair share of nightmares and sometimes when he woke up and tried to go back to sleep it only got worse. Faintly, he remembers being smaller and wanting to crawl into his parent’s bed but children of Xemug only need the knowledge that they were being watched over for comfort. Nothing more, nothing less. He wonders if crawling into David’s bed now would bring them any true comfort or if the nightmares would compound upon themselves, leaving them both drained in the morning.

His hand rests upon the bunched up blankets. David kicks. Daniel waits a few seconds as outside the crickets chirp and a faint bird call heralds the coming dawn. He removes his hand and goes back to his bed. He’s sleep-deprived already from visiting Jasper, he tells himself. He doesn’t need kicking to keep him awake for what little sleep he has.

The next morning they both have bags under their eyes but they both pretend they don’t and life resumes as normal.

——————————————————-

David’s been holding 'therapy’ sessions for him on the weekends ever since Daniel admitted to not knowing his favorite color or how negative emotions worked. It's him lying on his bed with his fingers intertwined over his chest talking about his day while David sits at his bedside making affirming noises while doodling on a clipboard. Now and again he’ll interrupt the story to ask, “And how does that make you feel?” because that’s how it’s done on TV and when he runs out of things to talk about they go to flashcards. They’re on the flashcards now; David trying to convince Daniel to learn the other campers’ names and faces.

"Snot-nosed brat,” Daniel says as David pulls up a picture of the girl from earlier; the one who asked him if he didn’t like his parents.

“Oh, come on,” David says as he presses the picture closer as if that would help. “You spilled Kool-Aid on her dad’s shoe.”

“Johnson.”

“Her first name is Lyla but close enough. Now how about this person?” David flips to the next picture of Gregg mid-morning stretches. “You know him. He’s the camp counselor.”

“George,” Daniel says, just to be contrary.

“Close! Okay, how about her? She’s the other counselor.”

“Darryl.”

“That’s not even a girl’s name!”

He shrugs and tries not to think of the way Darla weeps with her body curled around Gregg or the way she looked the next morning: tired eyes and a kill-me smile. He tries not to think about it so much that he blurts out, “What if this time you be the patient?”

“Huh?”

He pops his head off the pillow and swings his legs around until he’s sitting up. “I’m sick of being the patient. Why don’t you be the patient?” He clenches and unclenches the sheets under him and tries not to stare at David too intently. He can’t give himself away. He might’ve started the plan early but he can’t give himself away, not yet.

David agrees to it. He assumes the patient position, lets Daniel have the clipboard and pen and waits, fingers intertwined over his chest, for Daniel to start their little game.

“It's come to my attention,” he says as he writes a few words on the clipboard, “that you have some things pent up from last year.”

“Uhhhh, I guess so,” David says. He offers nothing more. The silence lingers. Might as well cut to the chase.

“I think what you need is some closure. That’s why,” he turns the clipboard and pen back to David who takes it with the reluctance, “You need to write a letter to Jasper. I’ve already started it.” He points to where he wrote ’Dear Jasper,’ at the top of the page. “See?”

Not the smoothest way he could’ve brought this up. He had planned a lot more build-up but the lingering silence had been a detriment to his anxiety. David stares at him, then to the clipboard held loose in his hands, and then back at Daniel again with lost green eyes.

“Write a letter to Jasper?” David repeats.

“Yeah. You never got to say a proper goodbye to him, right? You’ll write it. I’ll do-” Daniel smiles through his lies and wriggles his fingers as if that would help sell the bit at all, “- religious things, and it’ll go straight to Jasper in heaven! Don’t worry, my preacher taught me how to do it and everything.”

“Will he write back?”

He wants to say yes. He could force Jasper’s hand into writing a letter back if he wants to, or forge one, if Jasper’s being stubborn, but then David would write to Jasper for infinity if given the chance and so he cuts the snake off at the head and says, “He can’t write back but I will promise he’ll read it.”

“I don’t know,” David says as his hand reaches up to tug at the yellow shirt around his neck. “I wouldn’t even know how to start…”

“Take your time. I want you to write everything you think is important down.” He swallows past the treacherous lump in his throat. “You can only do this once. Make it count.”

“Okay,” David hugs the clipboard close to his chest. He inhales and whistles out his exhale. “Okay.” He says again as if trying to convince himself. “I need some time a- and privacy …”

“Of course,” Daniel says. He steps away from the bed, hands behind his back to prevent himself from snatching the clipboard away and saying 'nevermind’. David doesn’t hop off his bed so much as slumps, dragging his feet toward the flap of the tent. When he exits, he doesn’t say goodbye or even a 'be back later’, he just ... goes. Daniel tries not to worry. He didn’t even know what the word meant a month ago - why would he ever worry? This is what he wanted.

He worries anyway.

David disappears for the rest of the day. Daniel tries searching for him while not searching for him. That is to say: he paces through all their secret hideouts while pretending he wasn’t searching for David so when disappointment fills him at not finding him, he tells himself that he wasn’t searching for him in the first place so it’s silly to feel disappointed. It works about none of the time but he keeps doing it because it’s something to do. Where David is, it must be a spot he’s never told Daniel about because he’s checked everywhere and no David.

When the other boy comes back, it’s a few minutes shy of curfew. He already has the letter sealed in an envelope, mouth set in a thin line.

“Are you sure this will make it to him?” David asks as he hands over the letter. Daniel has a hard time meeting David’s eyes - too trusting and still with that edge of caution lingering in the corners - but does his best to reassure him.

“I’m sure,” he says, and he is sure.

“Good,” David nods. “A- and please, don’t open and read it. It’s for Jasper’s eyes only.”

“Of course,” The words burn going down his throat as if Xemug or whoever has already seen through his deceit but they’d have to do worse than burn words to make him stray from this sinful path.

“Promise?” David asks.

Again, they burn. “Promise.”

——————————————————-

He throws the crumpled letter at his feet. “You told me squirrels spooked you.”

“They did and still do.” Jasper shivers. “Did you ever see that one squirrel in the forest with an eyepatch? That’s some spooky stuff, and I should know, I live on Spooky Island.”

“Cut the crap. You didn’t tell me David was with you when you died.”

The playful aura surrounding the ghost dissipates. Daniel folds his arms as Jasper picks up and reads the letter. When Jasper’s done he smiles at Daniel but it’s wrong. Is this what it’s like from the other side?

“Oh wow,” Jasper says, his voice light but there’s something dark in the underbrush. “You’re a real scumbag, aren’t you, Danny? Something tells me Davey didn’t give you permission to look at this.”

“I told you, don’t call me Danny.” He doesn’t dismiss the scumbag remark. Can’t dismiss what’s true. He repeats. “You didn’t tell me David was with you when you died.”

Jasper shrugs and folds the letter - the letter Daniel’s memorized so well; the scratched out half-words, the messy scrawl of fervent apologies, tears stains and all - and says, “It didn’t matter.”

“Bullshit, it didn’t.”

“What do you want me to tell you?” Jasper howls and the wind howls too, nearly blowing Daniel back on his butt with the force of it. His fists are clenched and his eyes are moon-lit bright and he’s real, more real in a way than he ever was in old faded photos or rewound VHS tapes. “Mr. Campbell asked us to get some stupid folder for him but Darla and Gregg said we should all go together the next day so we wouldn’t get lost. David got impatient and grabbed a rowboat and I came with. He was trying to get the folder for Campbell. I was trying to get the camp shut down. We argued at the entrance of a cavern and David ended up pushing me down the hole and into my death. There, you happy now?”

Jasper’s angry. He’s never seen Jasper angry before. He wants to move. Leave. He can’t. His feet are glued to the ground, and it makes so much sense and no sense at all because David can’t be a murderer and it can’t be that quick. Death is a drawn-out thing full of rattling last breaths and horrid coughs and shudders of revulsion and puke stained purple and red. This can’t be how it ended.

The wind whips at his face and a branch breaks off a nearby tree to hit him in the shoulder. Daniel says the only thing on his mind. “He wears one of your shirts. I know because it has a J on the tag. He holds it when he isn’t thinking or … he holds it when he’s thinking about you.”

The anger deflates from Jasper’s body. He backs off, and the wind stops blowing and the trees stop shaking and the entire world may as well have stopped turning because Daniel’s still frozen.

“Are you trying to make me feel guilty?”

Guilt. That’s what’s in his chest mixed with the ever increasingly familiar anger.

“No,” Daniel lies except it’s not a lie. He didn’t want Jasper to feel guilt. He wanted the other to feel the same as he did and that wasn’t guilt but something more, if only he knew the name.

“Oh,” Jasper says,“'cause if you were, I would’ve told you it’s working. So why did you bring me this?” And here Jasper holds the wrinkled letter as if it was both a blessing and a curse.

“Because David needed closure.”

Jasper nods as if he understands. “I’m not writing him back.”

“I know.”

“I can’t-”

“I know.”

It’s silent for a moment.

“Do you blame him? For killing you?”

His shoulders hunch. “I did for a bit after I first found out I died but… we’re kids. We were arguing. It wasn’t his fault.”

Daniel nods. He looks towards the camp across the lake and thinks about the nightmares that have plagued David every night. When he looks back at Jasper, the letter has vanished. He doesn’t ask where it went. The next morning, when David asks how the 'religious’ thing went, he says it went off without a hitch.

——————————————————-

The end of summer arrives faster than Daniel likes; not that he’ll admit that to anyone. Well, he told Jasper, but it wasn’t like the boy had anyone to blab to. Jasper, who had offered a solution, quiet desperation in his eyes. “Stay with me on the island,” he had said but Daniel knew their ending and so did Jasper. He would become a child of Xemug, a slave to his parents’ religion and Jasper would be a ghost boy, fated to forever haunt the sands of Spooky Island, and there was no changing that. Not ever.

“Daniel, you need to finish packing,” David says as he tugs on his tent-mate’s blankets. Daniel groans, shielding his eyes. He had stayed up late at Spooky Island the night before to say a thorough goodbye to Jasper and was paying for it dearly. “I know, I know. I don’t want to go back home either - camp is so fun! - but you need to pack up before your parents get here.”

He gurgles out a response that could’ve been 'fuck life’ or 'fine, go away’ or a mixture of the two. David huffs but it isn’t long before he leaves Daniel alone to pack his bags and then his eyes are slipping closed. A part of him insists that he should pack his bags and be ready for when his parents will pick him up - whenever that is - or else receive Punishment, but another, more sleep-deprived part of his brain throws out the idea that maybe his parents won’t pick him up. That he could live on Spooky Island with Jasper forever in Camp Campbell’s summer home and never have to go back to that house again.

God, he wishes.

He gets two more hours of sleep before his stomach wakes him up and reminds him he needs food. When he pokes his head outside of the tent, it’s around mid-morning, the sun not having yet reached its peak, and everything is… quiet. Too quiet. Is everyone eating breakfast or have they already left? He can’t tell. Despite claiming to detest the noise the other campers made in the morning there’s something about the quietness of the tents that makes him…

Emotions. It’s too early in the morning for this. Daniel pops his head back into the tent and searches David’s side of the room. The bed is made, the bedside table cleaned, the backpack and luggage case gone from the foot of the bed…

No, he couldn’t have left already, right? He would’ve at least said goodbye. Unless he said goodbye while Daniel was asleep and he didn’t remember. A pit opens in his stomach. He bursts out of the tent and jogs his way to the mess hall. Breakfast. They must all be at breakfast.

When the mess hall comes into view, he slows down and stops fast. Everyone’s here. All the kids, all the parents, all lined up smiling and cheerful.

Including his own.

“There’s our son,” his father says. His white balding head shines in the early morning sun and when he smiles it looks grandfatherly. Daniel knows better.

“Why, Daniel, what took you so long?” His mother asks. She tsks at him. “You should know the early bird gets the worm. Or, in this case, the rat poison-flavored Kool-Aid.” She walks up and hands him a familiar red-solo cup full to the brim with the most awful shade of purple and he takes it on reflex because she is his Mother, his Savior, his Guide to Ascension and- and-

“Is there something wrong, son?” His father asks and Daniel can’t speak. He looks at the other campers, all dressed in white with that vacant, empty look on all their faces and he knows it’s too late. Everything is far too late.

His mouth still has that gross sticky feeling from not having brushed his teeth. The top of his tongue is dry like cotton has been dancing on it all night. He opens his mouth if only to ask: “What?”

“We did this for you,” his mother states and her smile is so fake it could put Mr. Campbell to shame. “Congratulations, son. You’re the leader tonight. This will be your first time guiding everyone to ascension. Don’t be nervous or else your followers won’t ascend properly.”

“Is this why you sent me here?”

His parents talk as one. “Why else would we send you to this dump, if not to clean it of its impurities?”

Of course. Why hadn’t he seen it sooner? Maybe because he’s as brainwashed as the rest of them and had been from the very beginning. He didn’t ask why his parents dumped him here when his parents dumped him here because they forbid questions. Daniel closes his eyes. When he opens them, his parents are still there staring at him. They don’t blink. They never blink. He turns his gaze to the crowd watching him; waiting for his command. They’re bunched up: adults and campers all with the same blank face and he can’t see David but David has to be in there somewhere holding his own rat poison-flavored Kool-Aid and he knows like the pit in his stomach and the flutter in his throat and the cinder blocks in his shoes: this will not end well.

“Welcome,” he shouts as he raises his cup in the air, bits of Kool-Aid dripping off the sides, “to Ascension.”

His parents raise their cups, the cups they’ll never drink from; not if this was the real thing, and they repeat after him in monotone stereo. “To Ascension.”

Death is always preferable. He was a fool. A dang fool. His hands shake and his parents notice and smile at him which would’ve been comforting in another lifetime and what a long-ago lifetime that was. He stares back at the crowd. White shirts and white shoes and white pants and he knows it’ll soon become purple, purple mixed with red. He tries to remember the names and faces of the people he’s dooming but he can’t. For the life of himself he can’t, and he should’ve read the cards. He should’ve gone through David’s flashcards. They didn’t deserve this.

No one deserves this.

“Are you… crying?” His father asks. Daniel blinks and brings his hands to his cheeks but he can already feel the burn of them and the snot dripping from his nose. How disgusting.

His mother tsks. “It seems like someone needs another trip to the purification sauna. Being here all summer has tainted you.”

His father picks him up while his mother plucks his cup from his hand with ease and from this vantage point he can see the little make-shift cabin his parents set up at the back of the crowd; their own little on-the-road purification sauna. He struggles and fights and tries to claw and kick his way out but none of it phases his father. He hears his mother, voice raised, saying, “I’m sorry to say our son isn’t ready to be leading you at the moment, so I will take over. Everyone raise your cups and-”

He bites his father’s hand - (the hand that feeds him, the hand that will save him from all negative energy) - hard enough to draw blood but his father has long since cleansed himself from any pain and it isn’t long before he’s thrown into the tent and the steam comes and the door has swung shut and he’s begging, crying, banging on the door for a release that will never come. He tries to look out the little porthole window in the door but the steam fogs the outside world right as they bring the cup to their lips and he’s screaming but that only serves to make him woozier than the steam already is. His eyelids are falling. The tapes play. He tries to press his hands against his ears but it’s - (sweat off your negative energy, sweat off all the negative until there is nothing but Xemug, Xemug, Xemug) - no use.

It’s no use. Why are you struggling? Stop. Let Xemug in. Let all the negative energy flow out. Feelings trump facts any day. Don’t question your mother and father, Daniel. Never question them.

The door swings open and all the steam filters out, but it’s too soon. His parents? No, his parents wouldn’t have let him out early. They would’ve trapped him in there until he was good and ready; until his skin turned red and his pupils became huge and he could play the tapes to them backward and forwards. He lifts his head from the floor - (when did he get on the floor) - and there’s Darla. In her camp counselor uniform. There’s purple on her uniform and her hair is a mess but she’s alive and she’s not brainwashed.

“How-?”

She grabs him by the arm; her nails digging into his skin and drags him out into the daylight where black spot assaults his eyes and leave him blind.

“Daniel!”

“David?” The black spots leave only for him to watch as two nurses close the door to the back of an ambulance with David in the middle. He tries to move forward, tries to check if they had forced David to wear the horrid ascension uniforms or if he got lucky - but Darla’s hand is iron tight on his wrist as she opens the side door to her car and throws him in.

“What- where are we going?”

“The hospital.” Her tone is short and clipped. His eyes trace the ambulances as they drive off one by one. He first follows David’s ambulance and when it leaves out of view, he searches the occupants of the rest. Did his parents succeed? Did some of them ascend?

His parents. Where were they?

“Where are my-”

“Did you know?”

His head snaps back to Darla. Darla, who he always viewed as sad or happy. Darla, who always smiled bright for the kids or sobbed broken into Gregg’s arms. Darla, who had frazzled hair and the tightest white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel.

“No,” he says. “I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know.”

She says nothing and doesn’t even move until the last ambulance has left the grounds. After the last one leaves, she throws the car in reverse and follows. Mid-way through a left turn she flinches, and it's then that he notices the increasing bloodstain blooming on her counselor’s uniform stemming from a ragged gash with the same jagged edge as his mother’s favorite knife.

——————————————————-

When Daniel got to the hospital, they took him in for a quick check-up and, finding nothing wrong beyond dehydration, directed to the waiting room. Doctors and nurses rush back and forth in front of him, phones ringing on and off at the receptionist’s desk. At one point, a hysterical mother walks in and a tired-looking nurse has to check her in because of a panic attack.

Gregg joins him in the waiting room. Gregg who was lucky enough to have consumed none of the poison.

“The cops will want to interview you.”

Silence. The receptionist’s voice floats to them. “Three people are in critical condition, they need emergency care stat. Can you send over doctors?” She says.

“The other campers will probably blame you. Don’t let their words get to you.” Gregg says.

Daniel doesn’t ask if 'other campers’ included David.

“A helicopter? I don’t know if we have enough room-” The receptionist’ voice frays as a second phone rings on her desk. “Please wait a moment. Hello? Yes, you’re asking for….? Alex Lyla Johnson? I’ll pull up their information. Hold please.”

The intercom buzzes to life, “Paging Dr. Jones, paging Dr. Jones, you are needed in the ER.”

“My mom stabbed Darla.” He informs Gregg. He waits for a response and Gregg doesn’t disappoint. His eyebrows dip, his lips turn into a frown, his fists tighten, but he does nothing. Doesn’t yell or scream or Punishes. He gets up from the plastic hospital chair and says, “I’ll be back,” and then he leaves. And there Daniel sits, all alone.

A few hours pass. Families of the campers come in and wait around him. Someone asks him if he’s scared. If he knows of what happened. If he knows if one of their loved ones is all right. He doesn’t answer them. Not too long after, they start their own wild rumors.. That it was some expired food. That Camp Campbell turned out to be making some child labor camp disguised as a real camp and got found out. That one of the camper’s parents turned out to be a crazy ex-con from prison. At one point someone brings up last year. How they told their brother not to send niece to the camp after last year.

“What happened last year?” Someone asks.

“Oh, don’t you know? A kid died.” Gasps fill the waiting room. Someone leans in.

“A kid died? How? When? How come I’ve never heard about it?”

“They labeled it an accident. A kid rowed to the island in the middle of the lake during midnight alone and tripped or fell on his head or something. I thought it was shady. I mean, why weren’t the boats locked up? How did a ten-year-old sneak past the camp counselors? The police labeled it an accident, but it was all kinds of shady and I told Alex not to send Lyla to that camp again if he knew what was good for him but he didn’t listen and now…”

The old lady lets the words hang and like that the waiting room becomes abound with new rumors. They ask her more questions and she eats up the attention. She gets most of the facts wrong but Daniel says nothing. Instead, he wonders if Gregg has abandoned him. If he no longer wanted anything to do with the kid whose parents poisoned the whole camp. He doesn’t blame him if he does.

He wants nothing to do with himself either.

The small hospital runs out of waiting chairs. One lady comes in later than the rest and heads to the receptionist’s desk like all the other parents did and like all the other parents she’s told to wait. She looks around the room, lost, and settles to standing next to the wall.

“Here, ma'am.” He says with a smile as he stands up, “You can take my seat.” His butt was getting stiff. Might as well try to sneak around. Steal a snack. Search for David’s room or Gregg.

She gives him an absent nod, no doubt too worried about her kid to register anything, but then does a double-take. She shakes her head and rubs her eyes and when she opens them again, he can see them. Forest green. Like David.

“I’m sorry, you look a lot like my…”

Something rips apart in his chest and he’s drowning thinking about David and how he is and how he almost died - might well be on his way to death - and here stands his mother who gave him Airheads once and he can taste the stiff taffy in his mouth and under his molars and-

“I have to go,” he says and scurries off.

He finds Gregg in some break room a few hallways down. He’s with Darla. Darla, who shakes and shivers in her hospital gown, her long hair falling like a curtain around his face. “I can’t do this,” she says.

Gregg tries to brush the hair away, but she slaps away his hand. “It wasn’t your fault, Darla.”

“I can’t come back to the camp, Gregg! Not next year, not the year after. I’m done.” She’s crying now, but she’s also spit-fire angry and Daniel stands at the door wondering when will it end. The anger and the tears, when will it end? After that, he walks. He doesn’t know where he’s walking towards but he walks. He passes by closed doors and gurneys sitting in the middle of the hallway and rushing adults too busy to notice a kid where they shouldn’t be.

He walks past the waiting room, past the adults all either comforting or gossiping, and then he walks right out the front door. The fresh air hits his lungs like a welcoming gulp of water. “What now?” He asks of himself standing on a gravel road, parentless and alone. The answer comes easily.

He positions himself in the approximate direction of Camp Campbell and starts walking.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this was gonna be a two-part fic and the second part would be Daniel/Jasper/David but ... I think this is good as is.


End file.
